Now that I’ve taken stock of everything that has to be done outside the house I’m wishing I had paid more attention to the inside of it over the winter. By the looks of things I may not see the inside of the house, except to wash off the yard dirt, until the snow flies.
I love my backyard, it’s tiny and private. Privacy is a wonderful thing but it takes fences to keep the privacy. I’m grateful for my fences, otherwise my neighbors and I might not be so friendly. However, every spring my fences need work.
The fence at the back of my yard it fine, it’s vinyl and other than removing a little graffiti from it now and then, it needs no maintenance. The side fences are wood. Neighbors on both sides have large dogs, I have a small dog. Every time someone comes into my back yard the neighbors dogs do their best to get through the fence so they can come play with us. I love dogs, my fence however, really doesn’t.
I walked the fence line making note of how many of the slats need replacing. It’s been a good year, I don’t have to replace entire sections. After counting the slats I gave all of the posts a good shake to see if they were still firmly anchored in the ground or if they were rotting. Posts are good this year.
My front yard hasn’t been so lucky. We had really high winds that took out about an eight foot section of fence. This is a mixed blessing. I’ve disliked that fence since I moved in. The previous owners made it out of lattice and painted it with redwood colored paint. Hideous is an understatement. So I have two choices, I can buy some more lattice or replace the whole fence. Since the thought of putting more lattice out there makes my skin crawl, it looks like the fence will need to be replaced. Unfortunately this is not the year I can afford to replace the fence.
It looks like I will just have to hope my flower beds survive the neighborhood kids running though them, or I’ll need to plant more rose bushes.